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Ministry Encouragement Podcast – Episode #054
Hosted by: Rev. Jim W. Hollis, Executive Director of Proactive Ministries
www.proactive-ministries.org / Ministry Offices (USA): (770) 803-9988
Hello and welcome to another weekly episode of the Ministry Encouragement Podcast. I’m Jim Hollis and I am delighted to be your Host for this podcast as we continue to build Christian Community together. If you are a regular subscriber to the podcast, awesome! If this is your first time – I want to extend a special welcome to you and hope you will choose to subscribe and share this with others you wish to encourage.
This week I am going to be covering several key topics:
1) Taking a close look at our priorities today when it comes to our individual lives as Christ-followers as well as groups or congregations of Christ-followers. What are we really focusing on as we seek to grow and move forward? Sometimes we get very sidetracked from the MAJOR things and get bogged down in LESSER things like:
- Finances & Fundraising campaigns
- Buildings, Property and Stuff
- Programs and Metric Measuring
- Identifying and building on our weaknesses
2) We are called by God to focus on Spiritual Growth and Spiritual Formation – in other words, walking daily with Jesus, becoming like Jesus and allowing Jesus to guide our daily lives, decisions and overcome our challenges. It’s the Christ-walk that matters most. Spending quality and quantity time in Spiritual Formation will bring not only much a needed change of direction for us individually but will profoundly impact our churches as powerfully.
3) I will be sharing bits of an article from Outreach Magazine, one of my favorite reads, written by someone I see as an “Amazing Teacher & Model of Spiritual Formation” – Richard Foster. The article is entitled, “What Should We Measure in Church Today?” It’s been floating around on Facebook feeds in the last week or so and is worth reading.
4) Richard Foster gives us all a “Test for Spiritual Growth” by looking into the Book of Romans, Chapter 12. I will be introducing a relatively new Bible I truly enjoy as a study Bible, called, “The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible.” It came out in 2005 and has proved a great tool in supplying helps and guidelines in the area of Spiritual Growth and Formation. There is an entire section in the appendix on Spiritual Disciplines which is outstanding. And the version is the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). It is published by Harper Bibles. We will explore it a bit, particularly Romans 12.
Thanks for sharing in another Episode of our podcast. I truly appreciate your communications with me and would like to have you REPLY to a couple of questions from this Episode by email, voicemail (tab on the blog page on right side), Facebook Page for Proactive Ministries, or by connecting with me on LinkedIn (Jim Hollis).
My personal email for the Podcast is: jim@ministryencouragementpodcast.com
Would love to hear from each of you ON:
1) What is one of the most powerful Spiritual Disciplines in your personal life?
2) What is one of your favorite books or authors on Spiritual Gifts?
3) In what ways, if any, does your Church Leadership use Spiritual Gifts as part of their discernment process in choosing Leaders for the coming year?
It will be wonderful to hear from you. And as always, I am so thankful you have chosen to join us and be part of this ministry we share. Please share this Podcast with others in your circle of friends, influence and relationships. And until next time – be blessed, walk the faith and live out your Christ Relationship with passion for the joy you will receive through ministry.
Jim
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Jim, I liked the message as well as the music. That’s probably not what you want to hear but it is received well by me.
When we stop growing, then we have nothing. Life is a series of growth, in stature as well as spiritually. I hope I never stop feeling the touch of Jesus in my life. Sometimes, we let personal problems interfere with that spiritual growth.
Keep on doing what you do, Jim. You touch more lives than you could ever imagine.